Kossacks notice things the rest of us don't, or maybe they just imagine things that aren't there. This past week, one picked up on the supposedly racist subtext of Mitt Romney's 47-percent comments, while another smelled a "fetid odor of fascism coming from Lord Romney's castle" (and also announced that he's "ready to compare Romney to Hitler").

As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym. Daily Kos Week in Review will return in two weeks.

...Ever since Romney got the Republican nomination, I have feared that the Presidential race would become -- literally -- a coup...

Over the last few days I've been smelling a fetid odor of fascism coming from Lord Romney's castle. While I generally try to avoid steering the conversation into Godwin's Law territory, I'm starting to hear Romney fulminate against useless eaters, and his obsession with requiring work for a county with something like a 20% real unemployment rate is starting to sound like Arbeit Macht Frei...

In previous diaries I've been testing my reluctance to use extreme words like "slavery", "treason", and "genocide" to spell out the ramifications of the ideology underlying the GOP platform. My inhibitions are breaking down. I'm ready to compare Romney to Hitler...Hitler was dangerous not because of his ideology, but because he found a platform to persuade people to his ideology. Here is Romney starting to say the same things, to a small group of fabulously wealthy donors who are basically trying to engineer a 1% class interest coup...

...I want to emphasize something that is being missed in the outrage over the cold, literal reading of [Romney's 47-percent] comments: not only is Romney flat-out wrong; this is the loudest blast on the dog whistle of race since Willie Horton. "Victims..." "Entitled..." "Dependent..." Any black person of any awareness gets the subtext: Romney and the Republicans are sick and tired of Niggers. Period. If you are a member of the 47%--if you are retired or a student or out of a job or disabled or a worker who doesn't earn enough money to pay income taxes--he is talking about you...

For Republicans, American politics have become a nightmarish, real-life version of Blazing Saddles where every problem in Rock Ridge can be solved if we just get rid of the sheriff and his hangers-on and cut taxes...

...For too long, the GOP has gone under the cover of night to make it seem like it's the party "of the people"...

...[T]here is a large group of Americans that just refuse to see what we see so plainly: Republicans have become the foot soldiers of Ayn Rand...I want people to finally get it in their heads that these people are mentally ill. We will not get that with mealy mouthed Romney, I want him to be full on frothing at the mouth birther Romney. I want him to double down!

I know that it excites and titillates the Right to have someone that embodies their psychosis so neatly...Let's do everything we can to embolden the far right to take "off the gloves" and take to the streets, letting Americans know just how sick they are...Mark J Stern: Obama's too awesome to parody

...It’s not [Jay] Pharaoh’s fault that his [Obama] impression is unmemorable, nor is it SNL’s for giving him weak jokes. The fault lies exclusively with Barack Obama. As a president, Obama has shown remarkably few character flaws. A recent New York Times article highlighted his competitiveness and cockiness, but those are widely considered assets in the United States, more charmingly human than grating...

...Sarah Palin’s winks, George W. Bush’s malapropisms, Biden’s unbridled silliness: these tics seem to capture the essence of the figure, and, when magnified by a skilled actor, feel slyly, observantly brilliant. But all Obama does is take too long to choose his words sometimes, apparently because he’s more focused on choosing the right word than most U.S. political figures. That’s not a character flaw. That’s a breath of fresh air...

...Obama projects a powerful presidential aura, authentic without being faux-folksy (Bush) or smarmy (Clinton). If he’s hiding any heretofore unnoticed character flaws, he does so effectively. Obama looks like a president, talks like a president, and acts like a president. And unfortunately for SNL, those are hard traits to ridicule.